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B&O Festival Deadlines for 2026:
October 13 B&O registration will open
December 5 Deadline for regular price registration
December 12 Late deadline with $50 fee is one week after regular deadline.
Registrations sent after the late deadline will not be accepted.
If you do not pay your late fee within the late deadline, expect not to participate.
January 30 Deadline for having information in for program
Programs do not have to match what your play, but it is nice. You can still change your program after this date. It just won't match the printed program.
New rules this year: Open classification continues as in the past, but
HS Class D groups may choose to Sight Read UIL 3 instead of UIL 4
MS Class D groups may choose to play three pieces on stage, and omit a piece from the required list - three pieces must still be performed on stage, but one of the does not have to be on the list if you are Class D MS choosing to go a class lower.
Round up for 2025
181 ensembles at 14 sites
92 workers in 140 half day work assignments (plan on full day work assignments)
Suggest aiming for 15 sites next year with one additional band site.
For every site we add, the length of the day gets about one band shorter.
Thank you
Thank you all for fulfilling work assignments. We had 100% fulfillment.
Thank you to all our hosts!
Thank you to Dr. Tiffany Engle at Calvin and Joe Oprea for the Calvin orchestra site.
An extra-extra thank you to Jenison for hosting 3 sites!
Thank you to Rebecca, Mitch, and Spencer for all of your help!
Hosts for the future:
Please consider hosting in the future. Start talking to your admin the year before.
Save on transportation costs.
Pick when your groups play.
Reimbursement for expenses. (up to current limit)
Earn the undying admiration of your colleagues.
Keep the 50 adjudicator's pencils and sticky notes that are sent to you.
Suggestion for next year:
Once the schedule is published, please wait 2 days before publishing your schedule within your community. This will give us some wiggle room for making adjustments.
Please include all relevant scheduling information on your google form!
At your work assignment, please make sure you find and use the job descriptions for workers when fulfilling your work assignment.
Each site gets copies of these - ask your site chair if they don't give you the job description.
If you have suggestions for improving the job descriptions, please email Matt.
Spencer did a great job starting these. I think I've managed to improve them. Please use them. :)
The goal is for the job descriptions to make your job easier.
Sight Reading Music Purchases
Pick up your sight reading music at the meeting or it will be sent via Meyer.
Please send payment to (or give payment to Matt at the meeting)
Matt Palmieri
Southwest Middle High
327 Rumsey SW,
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
Where to purchase UIL sight reading music
Purchase past UIL sight reading music here
The customer service rep I spoke to said they think the current set of sight reading music will be available for purchase in May of this year.
All other previous years and levels are available at any time.
If you are searching for funds to pay for UIL sight reading music, try presenting it as a special project to increase students' sight reading ability. Maybe you'll get lucky and your admin will come up with a chunk of change for a special project to improve students' reading.
Potential Rule Change
Short version: Open classification for anyone, HS class D can play from UIL 3 and MS class D doesn't have to play from the list.
JH or HS ensembles choosing a lower classification than the ensemble's MSBOA classification are eligible for State Festival upon receiving a 1st Division rating at District Festival. (this applies to all classes)
Class D High School Ensembles registering at a lower classification can play from any required list and will sight read UIL Level 3. Detail for how to register are still to be worked out.
Class D Junior High Ensembles registering at a lower classification are not required to play from the required list, and will sight read UIL Level 1.
This will be read a 2nd time and voted on at the spring meeting, 5/31.
B&O Festival Sites for 2026:
Suggested for next year: 5 orchestra sites and 11 band sites
Why do we fill out the google form?
I occasionally have been asked why we have to fill out the google form in addition to the MSBOA website. In fairness, I asked this question too before taking on this role. I have learned that the google form really is necessary to create performance and work schedules in a timely manner without the B&O chair devolving into a nervous porcupine.
Thank you for taking the time to do both MSBOA.org and the DX google forms.
District 10 B&O Reschedule Protocol
Executive Board Action Approved Jan 2017:
When a District 10 B&O Festival site is cancelled, the District B&O Vice President will send an email to the District Membership announcing an intent to reschedule the cancelled site. Directors will have 24 hours from the time the B&O Vice President sends the email to reply declaring their intent to reschedule their cancelled event(s).
The B&O Vice President will send an email to the District membership to request a host or hosts for potential make up sites.
The District 10 B&O Vice President will contact all other District B&O Vice Presidents to find out what openings they have available to fit in events from sites that have been cancelled.
The District B&O Vice President will contact the District President and District Treasurer to determine how many sites, if any, the District can afford to reschedule. The District will only attempt to run as many make up sites as this group deems the District can afford. Adjudicators that were scheduled for the cancelled site and able to work at the make up sites will be offered mileage plus ½ the normal stipend for their services.
Once a site or sites, if any, have been obtained, and the 24 hour request to reschedule deadline has passed, the District B&O Vice President will reschedule events in the order the requests to reschedule were received. If there are more events wishing to reschedule than can reasonably be fit in at the makeup site(s), the District B&O Vice President will communicate this information as well as the list of open slots at other District Festivals to the directors of ensembles that do not get rescheduled in District 10. It will be up to the individual directors of groups who are not rescheduled for the makeup site(s) to contact other Districts’ B&O Vice Presidents if they wish to take an open slot at one of their sites.
District 10 will not pay for any additional fees incurred by ensembles that perform at sites not located in District 10.
Worker information for DX B&O Festival
DX B&O Festival Site Chair Handbook 2025.pdfDX B&O Festival Worker Handbook 2025.pdfHost documents from the state office - please note that while we have been asked to share these state documents with DX B&O hosts, not all the information on these documents applies to district Festival.
For example districts hosts do NOT need to arrange hotel rooms. In DX that is done by the Adjudication chair.
State B_O HOST Duties and Resp. 2024 FINAL.pdfState B_O SITE CHAIR Duties and Resp. 2024 FINAL.pdfGoogle Sites
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